Homer, The Odyssey
Samuel Butler, Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy., Ed.

"I was not there," answered Eurykleia, "and do not know; I only heard them groaning while they were being killed. We sat crouching and huddled up in a corner of the women's room with the doors closed, till your son came to fetch me because his father sent him. Then I found Odysseus standing over the corpses that were lying on the ground all round him, one on top of the other. You would have enjoyed it if you could have seen him standing there all bespattered with blood and filth, and looking just like a lion. But the corpses are now all piled up in the gatehouse that is in the outer court, and Odysseus has lit a great fire to purify the house with sulfur. He has sent me to call you, so come with me that you may both be happy together after all; for now at last the desire of your heart has been fulfilled; your husband is come home to find both wife and son alive and well, and to take his revenge in his own house on the suitors who behaved so badly to him."

"‘My dear nurse," said Penelope, "do not exult too confidently over all this. You know how delighted every one would be to see Odysseus come home - more particularly myself, and the son who has been born to both of us; but what you tell me cannot be really true. It is some god who is angry with the suitors for their great wickedness [hubris], and has made an end of them; for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came near them, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end in consequence of their iniquity. Odysseus is dead far away from the Achaean land; he will never return home again [nostos]."

Then nurse Eurykleia said, "My child, what are you talking about? But you were all hard of belief and have made up your mind that your husband is never coming, although he is in the house and by his own fire side at this very moment. Besides I can give you another proof [sêma]; when I was washing him I perceived the scar which the wild boar gave him, and I wanted to tell you about it, but in his wisdom [noos] he would not let me, and clapped his hands over my mouth; so come with me and I will make this bargain with you - if I am deceiving you, you may have me killed by the cruelest death you can think of."

"My dear nurse," said Penelope, "however wise you may be you can hardly fathom the counsels of the gods. Nevertheless, we will go in search of my son, that I may see the corpses of the suitors, and the man who has killed them."